The Gore Gun Agenda

Al's ultimate objective would be to abolish all firearms privacy

National Review Online. 5/05/00 10:10 a.m. More by Kopel on the gun
issue in the 2000 election.

What's in the future for the
anti-gun agenda, should Al Gore be elected President? Just drop by the
website for
Handgun Control, Inc., to find out.

There's only a short interval from the keyboards at HCI to the lips of
the President and Vice President. On the site, you'll find details
about comes next — but not what comes after that. Nor will you find
any details on what HCI Chair Sarah Brady says is her long-term
objective: a "needs-based licensing" system, in which gun ownership is
allowed only when the police determine that the would-be owner "needs"
the gun.

How does one get from the current Clinton/Gore/HCI program to the
needs-based licensing system? In other words, what would a Gore
administration push for, if it achieved the current items on the
anti-gun agenda?

Perhaps the best guide is the 1994 report of the White House Working
Group, a secret memo which was uncovered by U.S. News and World
Report. Here's the long-term strategy:

Complete Gun Licensing and Registration

First, the attack on the non-existent "gun show loophole" is only a
warm-up. The ultimate objective is to abolish all firearms privacy.
Every firearms transfer — including a Christmas gift from one's cousin
— would have to be routed through a federally-licensed dealer, and
recorded by the federal government.

A government license would also be needed to purchase ammunition.

All currently owned firearms would have to be registered with the
federal government, and non-registration would be a federal crime.
During the Democratic primaries, Bill Bradley called for national gun
registration, while Gore rejected Bradley's plan as politically
unrealistic. Gore was correct; for registration to be politically
possible, it needs to be built on an existing system of licensing.
Salami tactics are the essence of successful gun control.

The Clinton/Gore proposal for a national ID card for handgun
purchasers is a sensible "moderate" and "common-sense" step toward the
goal of total licensing and registration for all guns. Politically
speaking, it is best if the initial stages of gun licensing can be
implemented liberally (as rifle licensing was in Britain in the 1920s
and 1930s) so that most people can get the license. Once licensing is
in place, the bureaucracy can take care of gradually tightening the
licensing process (without ever needing to ask the legislature to
change the law), so that hardly anyone qualifies for a license (as
rifle licensing currently is enforced in Britain).

Hunting Restrictions

While the White House licensing and registration system would apply to
all guns, especially strict rules would be imposed on owners of
handguns and for self-loading long guns (such as the Marlin Camp
Carbine or the Ruger .22 rifles). Appropriating a term of art from
Canadian gun law, the White House would designate all handguns and all
self-loading long guns as "restricted weapons." Owners of "restricted
weapons" could possess them only at home, at work, or at a target
range.

In
other words, it would be a federal crime to go bird hunting with a
Remington 1100 shotgun. Handgun hunting, which is legal in every state
in the Union, would vanish.

President Clinton and Vice President Gore strenuously insist that none
of the laws which they have signed, and none of the regulations they
have created, have interfered with hunting. Although Clinton and Gore
are not correct in their claim, their "restricted weapons" agenda
would remove their pro-hunting mask, and take away the primary
sporting arms of millions of American hunters.

Bans on Defensive Gun Use and Possession

It would also be a federal crime to carry a handgun in public for
protection — even for people with state licenses authorizing them to
carry.

The White House memo also recommends consideration of a federal law to
outlaw "the carrying of firearms in...work sites." The White House
proposal would override current laws of many states, which allow a
person who runs a dry cleaning shop that stays open late to choose to
carry a concealed gun for protection. Or an accountant who stays at
work late during March and April, can choose whether to keep a handgun
in her desk, and carry it with her when she walks to the parking lot
late at night.

The White House Working Group praises the 1976 Bartley-Fox law in
Massachusetts. This law imposes a mandatory one year term in prison
for carrying a gun without a permit. In one notorious case, the law
was applied to a man who started carrying a gun after a co-worker
assaulted him, and repeatedly threatened to kill him. The co-worker
did attack later, and the victim successfully defended himself. The
crime victim was then sentenced to a mandatory one year in prison for
carrying a gun without a permit. This is the kind of law that the
Clinton/Gore administration wants to apply nationwide.

Banning More Guns

The Clinton/Gore memo states that domestic manufacture of guns should
be brought under the federal government's regulatory standards for
product designs. The White House memo predicts that such regulation
would outlaw "Many handguns now manufactured in the United States for
civilian use." With great applause from the White House, a forerunner
of the White House plan was recently imposed in Massachusetts, by the
administrative edict of the state Attorney General. The result of the
new standards was to ban the sale of all handguns except the Smith &
Wesson models.

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